I'm sure that some of you have seen the announcement that MSN (Microsoft) is closing the services that host this site. This will take place, so they say in February of 2009. This caught me, frankly by surprise although after the initial shock wore off - it should have been expected.
MSN is recommending a "migration" to a partnered company called Multiply- which I never heard of until this announcement. I have registered at Multiply and looked around - it is different. My main concern is if the new site supports Javascript which we use to display our games. I will be posing this question to the Multiply Technical support people.
I have also been reading the message threads of my fellow site managers and many are skeptical about Multiply's ability to provide similar web services that we have been accustomed to for these four years. I will continue research to find the best solution for the San Diego Chess Club's needs before taking any sort of action with this site.
I will keep all of you updated on the latest developments and thank all of you for participating at this site.
Rick Aeria
Site Manager
Rick,
ReplyDeleteRenew the registration of the sandiegochessclub.org and .com immediately at the clubs expense, of course.
~Ron
hi rick, i read the mail and the new faq on multiply, do wekeep same etails or do we need to change what is the new link for this group as you, iam bit shocked and bit not familiar with the new feaature sorry if that sounds silly, but as member do we need to do anything otr once you provide new link , we will beable to check messages etc
ReplyDeleteAt this stage, we are still evaluating our all options. In all probability, we will make an announcement once a new site is selected and the on-line membership will then sign-up as members to the new site - that at least, if the "Multiply" option for migration is exercised. As part of the discovery process, I intend create a small chess club site on MSN with about ten pages of content, pics and games and migrate it over to the Multiply site and see how that works out. In any case, I expect we will not be able to retain 100% of our existing web content but that may prove to be a mixed blessing as we need to restructure and reorganize our content. We are probably going to re-register the "SanDiegoChessClub" domain name and it may be put into use as one of our options. Nonetheless, keep your comments, suggestions and queries coming as we race toward a resolution in the coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteScratch the notion of creating a test website to evaluate the migration to Multiply. I tried to create a new website but MSN is apparently not allowing any new websites. Logical in itself given the situation of closing services but you just get a message saying "can't find that page". Oh well...
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteI think this is the best idea, for us to just have our own website. While it is more work it certainly gives us a freedom we didn't have with MSN.
As this is going to be much more work for Rick, I suggest that Rick be the editor of the website and let other people submit to him what goes in. ( He can certainly submit, of course but not as a requirement of taking care of the website) Perhaps some non financial remuneration can be arranged( club membership, free tournament entries etc).
I certainly want to say that Rick does an excellent job as does all our club officers. We got the best doing the best !!
Not long ago, I checked out some of the web sites of clubs from other major cities -- just to see how they compared to ours. They don't. Not the ones I saw, anyway. I didn't see anything close. This is a magnificent site, and I'm pretty sure that several great people have had a hand in making it so. I just hope that the new site, whatever it's going to be, will be as good.
ReplyDeletePlease do save all of the website that you can. It is the product of hundreds (or thousands) of hours of hard work by so many generous club members. It is an incredible asset to the club and well-worth saving. I don't know that much about computers, but if there is anything I can do to help please tell me.
ReplyDelete